Unrecognized Consequences

The saying goes that it’s a small world, but by the look of things it’s not nearly small enough.

So many of the problems we face in today’s world are the result of unrecognized consequences. These would perhaps be far less of a problem in a world that was smaller and more connected; a world less like a forest of disconnected plants and more like a tree, where each branch can see the other and watch as leaves brown and decay as the whole tree withers and dies.

Despite how “connected” everything is today, despite an economy that stretches its slimy tendrils over nearly every country in the world, and despite how we’re increasingly becoming global citizens rather than local citizens, we’re still extremely cut off from anything that doesn’t immediately surround us in some pretty frightening ways.

We now live in a world where almost everything we do, every aspect of how we live, has consequences far beyond our own borders. The problem with this is that despite the stunning increases in connectivity that have been made in recent decades, we’re still completely isolated from the effects we’re having on the world around us.

In fact, in some ways our newfound technological wizardry may have isolated us even more. There’s so much information available that it’s simple to tune out what isn’t convenient or interesting. It’s simple to miss something vital in the sea of knowledge competing for our attention.

How is our society expected to truly move forward until we can truly recognize what’s going on around us? This is one of the biggest challenges today’s world faces - getting normal people to actually see, to actually recognize, to actually pay attention to what’s going on around them outside the borders of their normal existence.

In the small villages of yesteryear, it was easier to perceive when an imbalance had been created with nature. Perhaps over-hunting an animal might have made food more scarce or perhaps letting a local business pollute a lake would have made the waters less productive and beautiful for other citizens.

But there are almost no consequences in our modern lifestyles that are as easy to detect as those examples.

Materials we use drain resources from other countries. Businesses we support make living conditions in far away lands miserable and pollute places their customers will never see. The average citizen rarely visits a national park, much less some of the places the resources for their products are coming from to see what’s being done to them.

Even some business can’t be fully aware of what’s really going on. The changes we are producing in our world are on such a global scale that it’s impossible to fully grasp many of them without a lot of study and research.

I’m not advocating that we should make mandatory trips into the forest a part of our school curriculum or that we all go “back to nature” and live in mud huts with only meditation and bongo music to keep us entertained. Both might be good (although I’ll admit I’m more a fan of the former than the latter), but they’re beside the point.

We need to figure out a way to show people what’s really going on. To hold something in their collective faces and say, “This is what you’re doing to your world. Do you see what all the fuss is about now?”

This isn’t going to be easy. Our educational system is lacking and our citizens are far too apathetic and preoccupied with the other elements of their busy life to want to learn about the hardships of some foreign culture in a far off country with a name they can’t pronounce or of the big blocks of ice, those “glacier” things,” melting on top of mountains somewhere for some mysterious reason.

But it must be done. I’m not going to pretend to know how. What I do know is that I believe even the apathetic, preoccupied people of modern society would want to do something, anything they could, if they could just see for themselves what was really going on and get a sense of the true scale of the problems we’re facing.

I may not think all that highly of the human race sometimes, but I do believe that the thing holding back our society from progressive change is not some collective hatred of nature and a desire to pollute our world for our own selfish interest. I believe that we simply need to see with our own eyes the consequences of our actions, be told there’s still hope, and be told that there might even be something we can do about it.

I consider myself lucky to have learned more about some of these things in my college classes. I hope, somehow, others can realize the truth someday as well and begin to feel that desire for change brewing within themselves. Maybe then our world will stand a chance.

Our Beloved Automobiles

Unless my upcoming job search proves a lot more successful than I expect it to, I imagine I’ll be stuck driving my old 1996 Toyota Camry for two or three more years. I’m fine with this, as it’s a great car that will likely have few problems lasting me that long and it’s served me very well over the years. I like the boring little thing.

Still, that doesn’t keep me from dreaming about owning a nicer, shinier, newer vehicle someday.

There are a pretty large number of reasons why I’ve thought for a while that a hybrid vehicle might be a great fit for me as a my first car purchase. The part of me that cares about the environment and sees a green vehicle as a small way to help is one reason. Perhaps a bigger reason is the fact that the Prius, my current hybrid of choice, packs a whole lot of technology for your car buying buck which plays nicely to my infatuation with gadgets and gizmos.

I could go on, but the point is, many different parts of me want a Prius.

Whenever I dwell on the subject for any length of time, however, I often find my mind wandering back to the same environmental quandary: How in the world is a country like the U.S. going to wean itself off of its reliance on (and love of) cars and rework its infrastructure to one that’s more sustainable?

The issue is perhaps a little simpler with big cities. The dense space makes it, at least theoretically, easier to make public transportation a viable option and to arrange things so citizens don’t have to travel as far to get to where they need to go. I don’t want to make this sound easy or anything, but comparatively it seems like they are much better off than somewhere like, oh I don’t know, Oklahoma, as a wild and completely random example.

Living in a place like Oklahoma really gives me a good perspective of exactly how difficult this sustainability thing is really going to be. Oklahoma actually might be one of the most prime examples around of a state constructed with the exact opposite of sustainability in mind. Our entire infrastructure, every road, every interstate, every city, was constructed with the boom of the interstate and the automobile in mind and now we’re nothing but one giant, tangled, spread-out mess of roads, flat land, and lots and lots of space.

How in the world is a mess like this ever going to become sustainable?

For a great many people in Oklahoma, myself included, going without a car is not simply difficult, it’s flat out impossible. Public transportation is a joke when it even exists and things are just too darn far apart to make anything other than driving a personal vehicle a viable means for getting place to place.

Norman is fairly small, but even here I’d hate to think how much of a hassle it would be not to have a car here. The giant urban wasteland that is Oklahoma City is another beast entirely.

All of this is to say nothing of the political climate around here that is, shall we say, not exactly the eco-friendliest around. We’ll leave it at that for the scope of this post.

Some European cities have a built in advantage because they were designed before cars even existed, so they are much smaller and more compact, making walking and public transportation much easier. Even some larger American cities could conceivably work this way in the future, though most are not even close to set up for this kind of thing now.

But it seems to me as if most of Oklahoma would have to be wiped off of the map and rebuilt for a more compact, car-free design to work. To say the least, I’d imagine the costs to make a place like Oklahoma “green” would be astronomical.

Hybrids are cool and more efficient and everything, but they’re a stop-gap measure at best. What we really need to do is find entirely new sources of energy and, if possible, move away from cars altogether.

But even were that to be possible, where would that leave a place like Oklahoma? How are we going to adapt to the sustainable future?

My guess: lag way behind even the rest of the slow-moving world and not do anything about it for as long as possible.

Hey, at least it gives us time to consider our options.

An Educational Road Block

I have heard it set by many authors and experts on the subject of environmentalism that the change required to save our world will come from the bottom up, not the top down. It will be the people, not the corporations, that swoop in and force things to finally change. A glorious revolution will be led by the normal people, finally made aware of the world around them and furious about what has been done to it. Once the masses begin demanding change, it is said, the businesses will have to provide it and then, finally, we can truly be on our way toward a sustainable future.

My only question is: are the masses ever actually going to demand such a thing?

I don’t doubt that if change is going to come it will indeed have to come from the general public. Businesses are far too content with the status quo, save for the odd and wonderful exception to the rule, and they will do whatever it takes to keep things just the way they are at whatever cost. One way or another, they will have to be pushed into change by those that pay their bills and inflated salaries.

The main problem that I see with this situation is that quite simply I do not believe the American public is educated enough on these issues to be able to be able to grasp what’s going on to its fullest extent, nor do I believe that this country has the proper infrastructure to educate the general public on such matters.

(Note: I limit my discussion to the U.S. on this issue because that’s the area that I have personal experience with and knowledge of, not because it’s the only place this is necessarily true, at least to some extent).

Let’s face it, the challenges our world faces are hugely complex. I consider myself an informed individual on many things, environmental issues included, but even I didn’t know the full extent of our problems or the changes needed to fix them until I took a number of college classes focused specifically on the subject and read books on the topic.

I may find these subjects fascinating, but I don’t believe this is the case with your average American citizen.

We need to restructure our entire economy, make shifts in our way of life, and vastly refocus our priorities. These are not concepts easily delivered in short sound bites in the news or in generalized, lowest common denominator political speeches.

Even if we started, right this very second, to implement sustainability and the necessary changes as a major focus in the curriculum of our public schools it would not be a perfect solution. The mindset of social mindset of the country could take decades to change before the children would grow up and into influential adults who actually had the power to change anything. Not to mention that the education itself would likely be inconsistent and lacking, due to the generally poor conditions of our educational system.

How are we going to turn our economic system on its head and start a revolution from the ground up if the people on the bottom who are supposed to get the ball rolling don’t even know they need to do anything?

Some of the changes that need to be made fly in the face of the patriotic propaganda that has fueled this country for so long that I believe they will be a really hard sell.

Work for the good of others, not to better ourselves?

Work together with other people and nations instead of maintaining our proud individualism?

Value the environment over good old cash?

Mimic nature instead of worshiping the alter of human ingenuity and technology?

Something tells me that there’s not simply a switch you can flip to get most of this country to adopt those values as easily as some of the educational elite might have, and this could pose a significant problem to our much-needed sustainability revolution.

One Man's Valuable Possessions are Another Man's “Irrelevant Abundance”

How do you separate that which is clutter from that which is actually valuable in a society that’s trying to rid itself of meaningless objects? This is something I have struggled with constantly while reading material dealing with the issue of our reliance on consumer goods.

I am simply not convinced that all consumer goods are bad.

To be fair, only the extremes of the environmental movement seem to be arguing anything quite that radical. The problem is that the middle ground is always fuzzy, so I’m never sure which of the products I use on a day-to-day basis I’m supposed to feel guilty for using.

I could easily see where some would define those consumer goods which I consider the most valuable as unnecessary wastes of resources that should be done away with: my new laptop, for instance, or perhaps my video game consoles or my iPhone which I carry around with me everywhere.

But to those who would argue that, I would argue that I consider these objects more than just metal and plastic clutter that is taking away from the real sources of happiness in my life. These devices, which may seem so useless to some, are extremely valuable to me.

With my computer I am able to stay informed and connected to the world around me. I can communicate my ideas to others through blogging and express my own creativity with a word processor much more easily than with a pen and paper. I can read the opinions of those different and more knowledgeable than myself. Indeed, without my computer I would be far more ignorant of our ecological concerns than I currently am due to the sheer amount of knowledge available through the Internet.

My iPhone performs a similar function. Not only is it “cool” and fun, providing many sources of entertainment through the applications I can use on it, but it also helps keep me connected with those I care about. Being a couple of taps away from friends or family, wherever I happen to be standing, is something I value highly. Without this phone, or similar computer programs, there are certain friends I would simply lose contact with altogether, which would be a true shame.

My game consoles are admittedly a luxury, moreso than the other devices I have mentioned, and bring up a somewhat different question. When does personal fulfillment spill over into needless consumption?

Does the fact that I am enjoying the use of these pieces of equipment that I could very well live a reasonably complete life without make me a huge part of the problem? Should I dump them in my quest for environmentalism and instead take up meditation as a more planet-friendly route to escapism?

Or is there perhaps actually some value in them?

There is no question these devices use resources in ways that are unsustainable. There is no question that some people would find them completely needless and wasteful.

But at the same time there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my life has been made more meaningful by these things.

I have met numerous friends whom I hold very dear through my hobby of video games.

I have experienced many emotions at the hands of video games, the stories they tell, and the gameplay the present.

I have always been fascinated by this medium and the new dimensions it brings to human storytelling. I have no doubt that video games are simply a modern take on the campfire story of yore. They may not yet have the same level of popularity or emotional depth, but even the most basic, button-mashing, mindless video game is a form of escapism just like listening to someone tell a good story.

Like music, like movies, like books, like art, and like the art of storytelling that has been around for centuries, video games are another venue of human creativity that I believe should be highly valued.

Yes they are wasteful. Yes they are technically unnecessary. But they are part of that creative spirit which so wonderfully separates humans from other species.

I present these issues not with some grand master plan or all-encompassing theory on how things should be. Rather, I bring up these issues because they are representative of the changes our society is going through in an attempt to finally deal with our harmful effect on the world around us.

One of the biggest reasons we are so reluctant to shift our ways is because we don’t know where the future will take us or what we will have to sacrifice.

This is a sentiment I can fully sympathize with. I am anxious to move the world into a more sustainable future in whatever ways I can. At the same time, I am nervous that perhaps we might go too far and brand those creations that were actually of some use, of some value, with a negative stigma - a proverbial scarlet letter.

Perhaps W, for wasteful.

I don’t want to see a giant W branded on my MacBook, my iPhone, or my Xbox. While my situation certainly isn’t true for everyone, for me these devices truly bring happiness to my life beyond some illusion of happy consumerism and I do not wish to forfeit them in some blind quest for a perfect world. I’m sure others have their own categorical niches of devices which they find just as valuable; just as fulfilling.

Am I wrong? Am I misguided?

What I do know is that I am confused. I do not want to be the chain dragging the world’s progress backward and denying us our better future, but at the same time I don’t want our future to be so irreversibly altered that others will not know of these wonderful products of human creativity and ingenuity and be able to derive value and joy from them as I do.

This is, I suppose, the eternal quandary of a tech-obsessed, ecologically minded individual. Hopefully the path will become clear to me eventually.

In the meantime, I’m going to go stare at a glowing rectangle, sure to have a smile on my face.

Initial Thoughts on Sustainable Business

I know relatively little about the specifics of running a business, but I do know that I am often interested when a bit of business news crosses my computer screen when that bit of news has to do with environmental concerns. I have been fascinated by the ways in which the landscape has changed even in the short time I've been paying attention to it.

The most amazing thing to me now is how being "green" has gone from unnecessary and overly expensive, something business fought actively against, to something that is so "cool" it is being used in marketing campaigns and everyone from Apple to Wal-Mart is trying to get a piece of it.

That said, I still hear plenty of cases where businesses are adamantly resisting environmental changes in any way they can. It really makes me wonder if all the "green" talk I hear these days really is anything more than a marketing campaign, or if there is anything deeper there. The stubbornness that some of these companies show toward environmental change is saddening to me.

Still, when I read about a topic like Natural Capitalism, I am able to remain hopeful. The real key to getting businesses to adopt better practices is to show them that it truly is in their best interests. If they're going to be so self-interested, then we need to show them how they can legitimately remain self-interested while helping out the environment and gaining notable benefits from it.

I think we're closer than ever before to widespread adoption of environmentally friendly business practices, but clearly we still have a long way to go.